A common pitfall of any up-and-coming entrepreneur lies in the lack of awareness and proper tackling of their business’ Brand Identity. The reasons for that are as plenty as there are different businesses, so here we take a good hard look at a couple key principles and tips that will surely give you a heads up on what to look out for at the beginning of your project.
1. Your Brand Identity is both a window and a bridge
A Window: because it’s the point of entry of customers to your universe and the goodies you have for them. A Bridge: because it allows those customers to tread on a path where they can properly understand and relate with your product and business in a way that you both can get the best out of each other. Ideally, you want your customers to look at your brand and say ‘alright, I get ya, let’s be friends’ in seamless fashion.
2. Your identity is as important as your product/service
Imagine your product/service is a person. Let’s say that person is brilliant but can’t speak and has no social skills. That person is then unable to function properly in society. End of story. So what the identity does is that it gives your business a voice, a language and a set of channels which serve as a connection between the good you have to give and its final recipient. And yes, first impressions do matter (and second, and third…) Your product or service will perform as good as how your clients/customers are able to relate with it, so make the path a lovely one.
3. Work with professionals
A very common mistake is to underestimate the skill and work it takes to get a visual identity right. It’s never just a logo, it involves doing study on the target audiences, the market, and the competitors, and from inside the business, it’s the graphic interpretation of its values and spirit, its products and what you as a leader look to inspire. Designers (and brand designers at its core) are the people armed with the tools, skills and concepts necessary to understand and translate those core values into the adequate visual elements which allow you to attract, engage and establish a relationship with your audiences. But if you won’t be bothered with hiring a professional brand designer, there are viable stock logo design options where you can get a professional logo that you can edit as you please. Don’t let budget stop you!
4. Design must work
Quality in design is less about looks than it is about its usefulness. Sometimes a flashy kick-ass design fails because it scares your customers away or oversells your product and you end up lacking; maybe the typeface looks amazing when you look at it in full display but when it’s applied onto a small icon it looks like an utter mess. Another way to make sure your design works is to simply recognize how well it represents your business, product or service; if it kills, it stays, if it bombs, it goes.
5. Stay true to yourself
As a rule of thumb, trends tend to have expiry dates and you should avoid allowing your brand to be an exercise on the latest design fad. It’s as simple as that. There are exceptions though; back in 2012 Flat Design popped up like the hottest design trend in recent years and ended up cementing its status as a standard practice, but that’s because it broke the mold of how design was considered not only for its visual appeal, but because it was useful. Same with Responsive websites; they’re not just cool, they’re absolutely needed for today’s device landscape. Your brand’s design will most likely fall into these two categories, but rightly so. Just be mindful of keeping it 100% with your own identity.
We hope these tips help you succeed in your path to entrepreneurship. It’s tough putting a business together since there’s so much to keep track of, but keeping tabs on these few points will definitely help you avoid tripping and crashing down the road.
Here at Vexels we have awesome graphic resources to build identities with, both for graphic designers as well as daring business owners. Stick around and discover the greatness we have in store for you!
